Jo Pavey’s woeful luck with injury has continued after she was forced to withdraw from next month’s World Championships with a foot problem.
Pavey, who missed the European Championships and Commonwealth Games last year after picking up a stress fracture in her foot, was to run the marathon in Daegu, South Korea but her latest injury, although said to be minor, has forced her to pull out as a precaution.
The 37-year-old has stepped up to the marathon from the track this season and finished nineteenth in an impressive debut run over the distance at the Virgin London Marathon in April.
A statement from UK Athletics said: “Pavey has sustained a minor foot injury and has had to ease off her required training for three to four weeks. She has decided to withdraw as a precautionary measure to ensure she can resume her schedule in full fitness and may well target a marathon later in the autumn.”
Louise Damen has also withdrawn from the women’s marathon team and will receive treatment on a sports hernia this summer in a bid to be fully fit for the build-up to the London 2012 Olympics.
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With Paula Radcliffe, the women’s marathon world record holder, not due to run at the World Championships that start on August 27 - she will compete at the Berlin Marathon on September 25 instead - the British team will be made up of Mara Yamauchi, Alyson Dixon and Susan Partridge.
Pavey has suffered a succession of injury setbacks of late, with her comeback after the birth of aherson Jacob being curtailed by a stress fracture to her foot, preventing her from competing at last summer’s European Championships and October’s Commonwealth Games, on the back of which she she lost her lottery funding for this season.
But since returning to fitness, Pavey, who won a silver medal in the 5,000 metres at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, has adjusted quickly to the marathon. Her time in London of 2hr 28min 24sec was comfortably inside the qualifying standard for both Daegu and next year’s London Olympics.
Pavey also beat Radcliffe in the three-times London Marathon winner’s comeback race in May, winning the Bupa London 10,000, a 10km road race.